[chbot] Wanting real data - How best to mount sensors outside in the elements?

[Henri Shustak]

Hello,

I have some advice which is probably not particularly helpful. Philips offer a system called Hue.  If all you after is a temperature sensor, then they offer an out door motion sensor which also happens to have a temperature sensor inside. It uses Zigbee to connect to the various sensors and they generate a mesh network. 
This combined with a Hue hub (which connects via ethernet to an IP network) will be good in terms of being wireless (bad if you do not like changing batteries).

https://www2.meethue.com/en-nz/p/hue-motion-sensor/8718699706036

I have also recently put together a script which will periodically scrape the data from the hub and store it in a log file / database.

As mentioned, this probably is not particularly helpful in terms of what you had in mind. But I am putting it out there as it may be relevant if all you are after is temperature sensor data. If you are looking for carbon dioxide levels, wind speed, carbon monoxide, etc, then probably not so helpful. Also, if anyone out there has a Hue system, then it is possible to log the motion and temperature data at least initial testing seems to indicate this. I have also written a backend which is able to trigger **whatever** based on button presses / motion detected and other things happening on a network (possibly other sensor inputs) and I have some computer vision in the mix there as well.

If you are interested the script I have put together for Hue it is available from : 
https://gist.github.com/henri/fd7e367d853a3970bdf6c077cf7765da

Finally, note that at present the temperature sensor data is not scraped from the log. But I am planning to add this in a future revision or you could add it your self and get rid of some of the other stuff that may not be required for your purpose. It is very much a work in progress, but I have been testing for at least three weeks with that version and it seems fairly stable (your milage may vary). So far I have not melted the poor little hue hub yet.

Henri



> On 28/05/2020, at 9:14 PM, Andrew Sands <andrew at theatrix.org.nz> wrote:
> 
> Hey all list dwellers,
> 
> I'm looking for advise, suggestions and general pointers to what other have done in order to get various types of sensors working out in the real world - that is beyond the bench.
> 
> What sensors perform better / marginal, what methods provide the best mechanical / environmental protection.
> 
> Where should I position say an outdoors temperature sensor?
> 
> Mostly I'm after less of the theory and more of the I tried this but it mutated a spider which ate my cat kind of thing. So don't do that.
> 
> Thanks for reading, stay safe. Wash your hands.
> 
> Regards,
> Andrew 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Chchrobotics mailing list Chchrobotics at lists.ourshack.com
> https://lists.ourshack.com/mailman/listinfo/chchrobotics
> Mail Archives: http://lists.ourshack.com/pipermail/chchrobotics/
> Meetings usually 3rd Monday each month. See http://kiwibots.org for venue, directions and dates.
> When replying, please edit your Subject line to reflect new subjects.